>> i hope your reports will give reports about the sustainability in afghanistan and we still have a program that is important as opposed to something being absorbed and lost in the war efforts and lost in the process in terms of continuity. i would ask one controversial country situation now, we ran into a lot of problems with egypt. we heard that even polling and egyptians as there threats to the united states, but a billion and a half of overall support. 70% of egyptian people say they don't care. it's interference. on the ground situation with egypt and your program at this point. >> it's been a challenging few weeks of course as you are aware. we took the position that we really wanted to see resolution

with respect to ndi and iri and their staff. that situation is still active and being worked. we are pleased to see the u.s. staff be able to leave or the international staff. they are remaining issues that we are working through. with respect to the remainder of our approach, we remain focussed on trying to make sure it's successful and responsive to the critical needs. in a context where we are trying to work through the issues as a continue to continue that approach. >> thank you. >> senator menendez? >> thank you, mr. chairman. dr. shaw, thank you for your service. i have to be honest with you though, i don't understand and know what you answered last year when i raised this question. you will have to do better this year than the answer you gave me last year. i waited to see.

that is my concern about what's happening in latin america and the caribbean. as in many regions of the world whereus aid works, the absolute level ofus assistance in latin america and the caribbean has begun to decline. in latin america unlike africa south and central asia and the middle east, so too has the proportion of u.s. aid going to the region. so that's a compounding factor. between 2008 and 2012, u.s. assistance aid fell from 2.1 billion to 1.8 billion, a 13% decrease since 2008. assistance to latin america declined proportionately and now it's only 8% of lateral aid where as in 2008 they received ten.

looking over this year's request, i am alarmed by what i see. the spending request for esf is down 7% from last year. a whopping 21% from 2008. even direct assistance to guatemala is down slightly even though the herald shock and no one would ask the president whether his country had the possibility of being the next somalia. knowing that the drug cartel s are overwhelming not only the government, but the others. i know you told me last year and this has only gotten worse. your theory of budgeting for the best bang for the buck, but not if that means ignoring the areas where the need is the greatest. when i look at the western hemisphere, our own front yard and what is happening in

undermining these countries through the narcotics travel and the resurgence of health issues that were once thought to be cure like tuberculosis and i see the rise of it. of course health disease know no borders. when i look at the question of undocumented immigration that we debate and think about what creates that movement, it's either dire economic necessity or civil unrest. when i see the movements that are anti-democratic in the region, continuously challenging their citizens in terms of their fundamental rights and the list goes on and on. i don't quite understand what it is that the administration does not see that i and others see. my question is what is your justification in this regard and how do you rank the needs of the region versus the needs of other

regions? what did you consider when making these cuts in the budget. if we start there, maybe i will get a sense of how you came to your conclusions. this is not a budget i can support. the final point i will make and give the balance of the time for your answer. within that context as well, i know that esf accounts took a hit, but i see what you did for the accounts in cuba and we have an american citizen languishing in castro's jails and so our response is to cut the program in cuba. is that a deal we made? we cut the democracy program in cuba in response to an american in jail? we send the absolute wrong message and we never in the world cut our democracy

assistance programs because of the disapproval of the regime. here you are cutting it by 25%. pretty significant. make me feel better, if you can. >> thank you, senator for the comments. i will take them in order. our approach overall to budgeting is to do our best to get results or achieve new ones given the overall budget situation and this is presented as a budget that has a reduction in assistance within the account. within latin america, our priority has been security in mexico, central america and the caribbean, programs like this have seen real and significant and sustained increases year on year under this administration. we would like to continue on that path. we have seen what has come in

large part in places like columbia or peru and where by our criteria to take on the costs of implementing levels of per capita income and revenues at the country level. they have domestic responsibility and we believe that's an appropriate trade off and in fact as part of the pathway and vision for success. exemplified by a place like panama. >> with respect, you are talking about where you reduced in one country and i am talking about a region who can't me that central america in its challenges today are the equivalent of a columbia or the other examples you cited. >> for central america and i have to review and come back to you, for central america we maintained a commitment and we

maintained our budgets and in areas like this program seen significant increases. when you look at the region overall because of the growth in latin america and many of the countries are making the transition from recipient to donor like brazil, we believe they are applied in an effective way. in places like guatemala and el sal va tor, we have made them priority countries like the president's partnership for growth. in some cases that doesn't come with a tremendous amount of investment, but it comes with a lot of support for improving the quality of the programs and making sure we bring partners like wal-mart to those economies to help move farmers out of poverty in a sustainable way and we are seeing real results. they have a good example where we see 15,000 farmers move out of poverty and a reduce in child stunting rates.

those are model initiatives and even though we can do them at lower cost because we are building real partnerships with other whogs can sustain it. whereby to cuba, my time is short. we didn't make the proposed reduction because we were urged to by an external regime. we are presenting a budget we think we can implement effectively andy we recognize and have done a lot through the state department to try to deal with the situation with allen and have taken steps to support his situation and his family and we hope to see him released and continued objectives. >> it's a remarkable thing to me that you can sit there and tell me that in a time of greater repression and at a time when two hunger strikers whose only crime was speaking out have died and the women in white get attacked by security forces and the a time in which a round up

of 100 peaceful protesters ended up in jail and we reduce 25% in cuba. i don't know how you figure the metrics, but they don't work. >> senator corker? >> senator chairman, thank you for the work you do and for meeting with us in advance to let us know about what you are learning now. >> the developed countries where rapid growth is taking place and the countries with lesser growth happening. as we watch the other powers around the world and the way they invest in developing countries, much of that is done in a way that furthers their own growth also. i am wondering as you look at the investments, do we give any thoughts as to how that might benefit our own country and creating a relationship that is symbiotic and allows jobs to be created in our own country?

>> thank you for that question and i think we have also studied carefully the models that countries like china deployed to position themselves aggressively in what are going to be the emerging markets of the next few decades. it's worth noting in africa you have 15 to 17 countries growing at six or 7% annually consistently and a common market that is larger than the market in china and there is very clearly serious and important opportunities. the same is true in asia. we think globally the bottom two, three, four billion people in the world represent an emerging market and a lost what we have done in the private partnerships and the majorests have been designed to help american sthugs participate in development.

for the specific results and innovate and create mossles that will help serve in and in some cases profitably. low income communities today. in ethiopia we worked with peps to help them build out a supply chain to reach 30,000 chick pea farmers. they are able to have a product and the hummus product which they sell in commercial marks, but about half of the total product will be a ready to use pace that is provided in food aid for the stunted and vulnerable children. >> that's a good example of the partnership that achieves results and allows for positioning in the markets. we have a major partnership to help them develop and sell to

low income communities and improved products to purify water. in slum communities, that's a major product and they have unique technology and can do that and generate great results. we have tried with the community has thought about partnering with the corporate sector and the private sector and try to engage in a more creative and results oriented approach to develop new business models and our development out comes and often at lower cost. and create a counter system to what we are seeing in some other countries. >> it would be great overtime to develop metrics so we can see results in that regard and i thank you for the focus. i know we talked about that privately. we noticed in the budget and i know this is something that is

very bipartisan as far as support goes. you set a goal of increasing the number of people from four million today to six million in 2013 and at the same time reduced funding for 5.1 billion to 4.5 billion. so you have a substantial increase in the goal of over two million and a reduction and i know all of us need to be focused on the amount of resources we are putting into all of these programs. i wonder if they are lining up or if the goal itself is ambitious. >> we studied this carefully and we believe this is an achievable goal. we think with the budget request we are making for global health and the significant efficiencies in the program as we both reduce the croft structure of doing work and importantly, as the cost of providing anti-viral therapy to patients has come down significantly and continues to go down. we believe this is an achievable goal and we will hit the six

million target. we are at 4.7 million right now. having exceeded expectations already, i believe we will have the resources to lead the world in a global effort to address the transmission of hiv from pregnant mothers to children and an end to that transmission so we can get to as the president and the secretary both committed to, a situation where we have a generation that is free of hiv and aids. we are committed to those objectives and committed to making sure that institutions like the global fund that have been in important places to leverage dollars with other donors and continue to be successful and we continue a budget that we think we can achieve that. >> he is referring to the climate change fund of $407 million. it is curious with all the other issues that we are pursuing, what exactly are we planning to do with that $407 million as it

relates to climate adaptation and what effect do we think it will have with the aid programs? >> thank you. first, the resources for the climate change program overall includes adaptation, but it also includes an effort to improve energy and effort to address deforestation and do that in a way that creates business opportunities for local populations and source of incomes. on the adaptation in particular, it covers a broad range of activities. some of them such as creating climate resilient to agriculture will be important and we'll deliver specific results and specific outcomes. other activities are designed to really help countries develop their own adaptation strategies to hotter and drier growing conditions to more droughts like the one we saw in the horn of africa to resilience efforts and

sometimes that may include getting insurance and communities that are vulnerable or helping farmers in bangladesh who are vulnerable to floods. we are trying to find alignment between our paid the future program and our climate change and our health efforts and trying to point resources towards those types of things that deliver specific development results in a logical manner. >> it's really more about the ag community. getting people to plan for that. is that what you are saying? >> it sounds like it is trying to get farmers there to look at weather trends taking place. >> there is in particular, we have an exciting partnership with nasa that allows us to

marry some of their earth observation systems and weather collection systems with the reality of what's happening in certain parts of the world that are vulnerable to climate shocks or extreme weather and plan for and adapt to that. that's in our field called resilience programming and that's a technical term, but it helps communities really protect themselves against what we know is happening which is more droughts in the horn of africa and more floods in the delta and bangladesh and those types of situations. >> for it's oriented that way and i know my time is up, i would suggest a title change or something. it ends out a different signal when you first hear it and what you are talking about obviously fits if it's described as you said, very much into the agriculture efforts that the senator and others have talked about. i know my time is up and i look forward to talking in more detail.

>> senator? >> thank you very much for being here and your efforts on behalf of the country around the world. i know that senator cardin raised the concern about investing in women and the importance of doing that. it's something that secretary clinton is committed to and i happen to support the belief that investing in women is one of the best development strategies if we get the most out of our dollars and the hope is that we are coordinating these programs and making those investments across all of our development efforts. i wonder if you can talk a little bit about how u.s. aid staff and contracting agencies are held accountable and the metrics they have for integrating gender for planning and budgeting throughout program design and implementation and monitoring.

>> sure. thank you so much for that question and that comment. we really do believe and understand and think that there are decades of strong data to substantiate the point that if you can effectively engage women in development solutions you get better results, more sustainability and the structure of what you're trying to accomplish becomes easier to accomplish and solve and more sustained over time. for that purpose, we've really helped to put together the national action plan for women, peace and security and we've introduced a new gender, a women and girls' policy to make sure we do exactly what you suggest -- which is establish metrics and measures in our major programs to be able to assess whether the efforts are preferentially focused effectively on women and girls and whether we're seeing results from that. >> the i interrupt you, i'm

sorry? so that effort is under way now. the metrics aren't in place yet and you're in the process of developing those. >> most of our major areas we have them. we spent a year putting this together and are steadily rolling them out. we have a major effort in mobile phones and mobile banking to help people who are otherwise not connected to a cash economy but have a mobile phone, use that tool to connect better to receive financial services and be part of the economy. we believe and have established specific targets within those efforts to make sure they preferentially and target women. it's making a huge difference. like haiti, a million transactions, the majority by women on mobile phones who previously didn't have access to finance. same is true in kenya, afghanistan, and other asian

countries. we have a women's empourment index. so every one of our programs will report on to which their programs are empowering women farmers and it's been highlighted as a best practice in the field because it doesn't just measure women's incomes but their relative standing compared to men and their position in decision making in their communities. in our civil society and democratic governance programs we're taking new efforts together with ambassador revere at the state department, to make sure we're identifies women leaders of ngos and civil organizations and bringing them into the embassy fold and using our resources to elevate their visibility and standing in country. these are just some a of a broad range of activities that get as detailed as better lighting and safe spaces for women in refugee chance from the get-go from our

u.s. partners. i think this will generate concrete and detailed results. we'll be happy to share our results with you. >> great, thank you very much. while we're talking about women obviously, one of the issues that's very important to women is family planning. international family planning remains a controversial issue. we had senator -- former president clinton and bill gates before this committee last year. i had the opportunity to ask them what we could do to try to get beyond that controversy. and recognize that family planning is actually very pro-family and pro-women. and important to save the lives of women and infacts. i wonder what experience you've had in your position today, and

whether you have any thoughts about how we can make this issue less controversial and more supportive of what women and families need around the world. >> well, thank you. i perhaps look forward to learning your thoughts on that or bill gates' and president clinton's but at the end of the day we know our history of program support in family planning has been one of our most successful areas of work. we do not, as you know, in any way, support or fund abortion or any counseling related to abortion. very strict controls on that. we've seen in country after country, a common pattern that gets you to a place where you have a better demographic situation for development. and that is, first a significant reduction in child mortality and we know when that happens people and families invest more in kids. get them into school and they become the pathway out of poverty. and then that is generally

followed by a long term and more effective approach to family planning and reducing the total fertility rate in the countries. and the combination of those things are a major part of the success story we see around the world. so it's incredibly important. we've seen in our own programs that effective birth spacing, reduces maternal and child mortality by 25%. and we think that there are relatively none controversial ways to achieve that outcome simply as part of having trained community health workers. the same people visiting people's homes and making sure kids that are malnourished have access to protein and talking about effectiveness of that approach. in pakistan, for example, we have helped train more than 22,000 health providers. and have seen significant and positive results in terms of

reducing the birth cohort year-on-year as a result of that effort over a number of different years. >> thank you very much. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator isaacson? >> thank you, i appreciate you being here and your great contribution not just the united states but the whole community. i'll start off with a parochial question and i doubt if you know the answer but if you do -- peanut crisp program a collaborative research support program flew ua said, a five-year contract that ends at the end of this year and is being reviewed for extension. a number of universities of which the university of georgia is one participating in the program and they recently found -- aflotoxin and tied it to immune systems and they're making a breakthrough and turning it around. my interest is to find out what

the status of that review is and what the agency thinks of what's been produced so far by the peanut crisp program, if you wouldn't mind. >> that has been an external evaluation that's under way. we've tried to restructure our entire research strategy and agriculture and food security and this is part of that review. i will explore the details and come back to you on that. but i want to note that certainly, aflotoxin is a critical issue that we've expanded our focus on under the new strategy and we also would note that through some of our other mechanisms we've been working with, i believe, a group in georgia that's producing peanuts -- a peanut-based high nutrition product for some of our food aid as the food aid makes the shift to include more high nutrient, high protein and prepackaged food that have a bigger impact on helping kids

survive and overcome acute malnutrition in certain settings. but i will explore the georgia peanut crisp. >> at the risk of grandstanding, but you brought it up. the program the in fitzgerald, georgia, and they are making the packets that are bringing nutrition to somalia and kenya in the difficult drought. it's a three to four ounce peanut base with powdered protein in it. it's produced by nonprofit. so when y'all make note that we're not for profit down in georgia. would you explain to me the role of usaid and the role of cdc? >> from the beginning, petfar was for expanding service access

and to affected populations and to have a very disease-specific, disease-control motel. initially, the cdc what it does best which is epidemiology development and development with the host country of the strategy to address hiv aids and usa does what it has done best which is support service delivery, the development of the long-term sustainable health system, inclusive of financial models that will help it sustain over time. over time, the reality is that those lines have blurred and now, both partners do a lot and when i started, certainly, the degree of overlap and duplication was pretty extraordinary. i want to compliment both tom